SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E18: The Fix

Good morning/afternoon/evening to you, Snowflakes! Two recaps, two weeks in a row? I know. It's like I've made this my job or some shit. Let's recap!

We open during daylight, on a man in a car with a cigar and a piece of paper in his hands. Oh, it's a photo. He starts drawing on his own face, and then we cut to Nick in Nat's lab - like, not some lab space she's rented, or a mini-lab at her house - no, she's taking vampire blood samples in the crime lab.

Anyway. Dude in the car signs a note and puts I, Pagliacci into his tape deck and shoots himself. This is intercut with Nat taking Nick's blood outside and having it explode on her. Really upbeat beginning, guys. I don't feel terribly depressed at all.

At the crime scene, Schanke's looking lost. The captain asks him if he's okay, and he says that the dude in the car is the last person he'd ever suspect of suicide. She notices that IAB is already on the scene investigating, but Schanke isn't surprised: the IAB guy is apparently a super control freak.

Back at the precinct, IAB is throwing major shade on Sykes - the dead cop. He accuses Sykes of taking bribes from a mobster, and of course Scanke defends him. So does Nick. Captain Cohen looks completely done with this shit, but she just lets IAB ramble on about Sykes's terrible record - to which Schanke says that Sykes had the best bunco record in the precinct three years running.

Obviously "bunco" means something totally different in the great white north - and on Urban Dictionary, believe it or not, where they tell me it's a rigged dice game. So, like, fraud, I guess? Fraud cases? We'll go with that.

Sykes's wife left him four months ago - "because she couldn't take the beatings anymore", says IAB, and...Well, let's just say the statistics on cops and domestic violence? Not good. IAB also has Sykes's psych profile, and apparently the department shrink called him "unbalanced".

Schanke's having none of it. He storms out, and after he's gone, it comes out that IAB has been investigating for a while. Nick says he wants to take a crack at the case, but IAB tells him to back off. Nick says okay, in the most sarcastic and least convincing way ever. IAB would know that wasn't going to fly if he ever spent 10 minutes with Nick Knight, but you know how Toronto feels about doing the extra work.

In the lab, Nat's telling Nick that he has a sort of virus that makes him a vampire. She stole some time on a friend's super-giant-awesome electron microscope and she spent some (certainly departmental) resources trying to grow the virus outside of Nick, but no dice. And here's the kicker: She's come up with a drug to neutralize the virus.

Oh. I remember this one. It's shitty. For a second, I thought this was the one where Nick eats spaghetti - I mean, maybe it is, but I thought that was the one where he got amnesia? I suppose we shall see. Nick doing crazy non-vampire shit is really the highlight of this series, let's be honest. I mean, aside from Lacroix doing...anything.

Nat totally jumps the gun and says she can cure Nick, which segues nicely to Flashback Time. Nick's walking through a lab with a guy he calls "The Resurrection Doctor" - a nickname he earned "back in England, from some failed experiments in resuscitation".

Guys, I'mma call it: This dude is straight-up Frankenstein. The fussy, late-nineteenth-century cravats, the weird antiquey lab, "The Resurrection Doctor" - Yeah. This has Victor Frankenstein written all over it.

Anyway. Nick's there to see if the doc can cure him. I should probably tell you I had a character looking for the cure to vampirism once upon a time. He was unbearably boring.

Nick of course agrees to take the drug, because duh. Nat warns him that it has some chemical similarities to endorphins, but it will make him barfy. She starts him low, at 1cc, and of course he doubles over in...pain? No. Nausea.

After he's done having man-flu, he stands up and declares that "the vampire...it's gone! I don't feel it!" Like it was some separate thing, or whatever. He runs out into the sun immediately, even though Nat's all, "Dude, that is not proper testing procedure!" Way to get professional at exactly the wrong moment, Nat.

He doesn't burst into flames, and they're super happy, and then they have a moment where they almost kiss, but don't. Nat, honey, you are never going to get a piece of that.

Nick and Nat are in his car, top down, cruising through town as Nick acts high as fuck and Nat tells him there have to be tests and he needs rest and basically gives him the side-eye for being all hopped up on doofballs.

Nick calls Janette, gets her out of bed, and meets her at her club to show off his new life. Turns out that there are vampires who will not be pleased if Nick really has cured himself, and it could be dangerous. Nick says he'll keep it a secret, so Janette's all, "Why'd you come, then?" He tells her it's to share it with her, and she's all, "HAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK NO."

Nat wants to know what Nick's been keeping from her. Nick won't tell her - Janette's just raining on their parade, and the last attempt at a cure doesn't matter, because they've done it! He drops her off at home, and asks her if he can have more of the drug. She's side-eyeing the hell out of him again, and let me tell you, Catherine Disher gives some amazing side-eye. She tells him he sounds like a junkie, and he does, and it's so. fucking. annoying.

She gives him the drug, and makes him promise to call her if he has to use it, and only in dire circumstances. Yeah. That's totally going to happen.

Schanke goes to the beach where Sykes died, because there's actually a murder to solve in this episode, too. He finds a...lens cap? on the ground, and snaps it up to take with him.

Back in the...1890s? Nick's vest says '90s, but Janette's gown says '70s. Costuming department, maybe get your shit together, eh?

Anyway. Janette is trying to warn Nick off finding a cure. He tells her to keep quiet about it and no one will find out. She calls the doctor a charlatan, and that everyone knows his reputation, and why is Nick even doing this?

"Because I'm super-boring," he says, "and I have to be the noble one, or where will this show be? In high ratings territory? I can't let that happen!"

He shoots up in the car, obvies.

He goes to find Schanke, who's dismissing the lens cap - which might be from binoculars - even as Nick is offering to investigate. But even Schanke is all, "Nope, it was suicide. I'm just mourning." And then notices that, hey, it's daylight, why are you out? So Nick says Nat cured his "sun allergy", and then drives Schanke to the restaurant where the mobster who paid Sykes eats lunch.

IT IS THE SPAGHETTI ONE. You know why I thought it wasn't? I just tied the spaghetti to the amnesia one because Nick's high-as-balls acting in this episode is unbearable. He's way funnier when he loses his memory.

Anyway. Mr. Canadian Gangster is really polite as Nick eats his food and drinks his wine - like, literally, his, off the gangster's plate. Nick is all over the place, asking crazy questions, wild-eyed and obviously not getting any answers out of the guy. There weren't any answers to get, anyway. At least, that's what Schanke's face says.

They leave and Nick gets hot dogs, leaving Schanke to pay. Schanke wants to know how Nick is putting together this "case" about Sykes's death, because it sounds fucking paranoid to him. Nick stops giving his conspiracy theory long enough to check out a pretty girl - but he wants to bite her, not fuck her.

Schanke mentions that Nick looks all sunburnt, so Nick checks his reflection, and finds that his eyes are all vamped out. He runs home, all fangy and sweaty, and grabs a bottle of blood from the fridge. So much for spaghetti.

Back at Frankenstein's lab, Nick's being bled while lightning literally flashes.

In the present, Nick takes some more drugs and collapses to the floor in relief, just as Lacroix wanders in. How? Who cares! MORE LACROIX, I say.

Nick is a sloppy fucking mess as he tells Lacroix he's cured. Lacroix, of course, laughs at him, because duh.

Schanke tells Nat all about the eating and the weirdness and the conspiracies. Nat looks progressively more worried about everything, and she can at least tell Schanke that she put Nick on drugs and she'll need his help to get Nick off them.

Lacroix is lecturing Nick about rejecting his generosity, but Nick's only interested in standing in the sun and gloating. Lacroix rightly tells him he's only traded one dependence for another, and this one gives him certain death in the bargain! Lacroix makes a reference to "those who keep our secrets", so I'm guessing the Enforcers take care of...vampires who turn human again? This seems weird, and not explained, but whatever.

The virus is mutating, it turns out, so that only more and more of the drug will help Nick. Nat says he's reverting whether he knows it or not, so Nick has a drug-fueled freakout. Schanke walks in in the middle of that, and it's the world's saddest intervention.

Nick goes back to the squad room and throws the lenscap at IAB, telling him he dropped it. And that he's on his way to work on this "case". IAB is all, "Um, yeah, whatever. You might want to look for some clues in the shower."

Frankenstein, not content merely to bleed Nick and take his money, restrains him on the table and says they have more "experiments" to do.

Nick goes home, but still hasn't showered. The gangster calls him, offering to tell him the "whole story" about Sykes, if only Nick will meet him in an hour. Still daylight. Nick goes to the lab and steals some drugs to make this meeting, because of course.

Nat and Schanke go looking for him after finding the drug locker broken into, and find the message on Nick's machine. So off they go, as well.

Of course it's a setup to kill Nick, who apparently was getting too close to the truth. He takes two in the chest from some lackey who looks like IAB, but I don't think actually is. I don't know; I wasn't looking too closely at him before.

Gangster also sent some guys to shoot at Schanke and Nat, convincing Schanke that Nick's been right this whole time.

In the past, Lacroix and Janette save Nick from Frankenstein, though no one ever says his name. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. And even if I am, so what? I got to use that "Puttin' on the Ritz" pic, so my day is made.

Another of the gangster's lackeys puts Nick in the trunk of his car and goes to dump the body, but by now it's night and Nick's okay. Gangster has shown up to make sure the job is done, I guess? and IAB totally IS driving the car. Nick runs them off the road, and then a bunch of squads pull up, because Nat and Scanke called the cavalry.

In the coda, Nick's drinking blood and Schanke's mourning his friend. And that's it. No pleasantries, no final words, nuthin'. It just...ends.

Next week: CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER, BITCHES! That's right, the episode where Nick goes crazy, and guess what? NIGEL BENNET DOES A COMMENTARY.

Guys. I'm excited.